


dahlias for a queen

by bladeCleaner



Category: Black Swan (2010)
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-09-14
Updated: 2013-09-15
Packaged: 2017-12-26 14:20:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,628
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/966943
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bladeCleaner/pseuds/bladeCleaner
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>She brings her flowers everyday.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. begin with the blood

Lily remembers that night as a haze, of suddenly bursting out the theatre to look at the ambulance, to see Nina on a stretcher. There's blood everywhere. Crimson stains on the orchestra, the mattress, the ivory feathers. It's like a sick white and red bouquet.

Half the company looks sick themselves, and almost everyone opts to go home, including Thomas, after paying for the room. Lily's been numb since then, absorbed in the fluorescent lights and the silent screams underneath the gleaming white that makes her think of her grandfather's slow implosion due to cancer-but she stands up furious when he says quietly, “I should go,” boiling over, full of venom. He nearly drove her to suicide. (Beth, Nina. Who is next. Who is next.)

Surprisingly enough, it's Veronica who comes after him. Lily's surprised she stayed so long-she hated Nina, as much as any other girl in the corps, if not more.

"You sadistic bastard," she screams, "You nearly killed both leads, you fucking arsehole-"

(Lily does not know this, but Veronica's mother killed herself before she could walk, before she could ever see her daughter dance.)

Someone has to pull her away and she stomps off.

Lily sees him still shocked, standing there like a statue, one reverent hand on his red cheek. She goes up to him, as haughty as she can, her chin tossed upward like she's on stage. She's not obscene nor loose, merely spits, "Are you happy now?" And turns on her heel to go find Veronica.

"-even if they were fucking-god, it's even worse, if they were fucking he was-"

"They weren't."

She looks up. "How do you know?"

"She told me."

Ron, for all her anger, replies, "She could have been lying."

Lily shakes her head, certain. "Nah. I would've known if she was."

\--

Lily doesn't have anyone to come home to that night, only the mess of the one night stand of before, so she stays by Nina. She's fallen asleep by the time her hysterical mother comes by, thank god-though she's rudely awakened by the continual sobbing and weeping. Her mother glares at her for some reason, like she's a parasite or a scarab on the wall. She raises her arms in mock-surrender and backs out the room to get some coffee and maybe. Maybe call someone from the corps. She's pretty good friends with Chelsea. She's new to the city and doesn't have many friends, just fuckbuddies and dealers. But most of the time she's on her own, partying up a storm so fierce the aftermath can't be considered. She gets along with everyone well enough, to have fun and laugh and pull pranks, but there's not much of heavy stuff. She hasn't had a best friend since Cisco.

There's too much to process about this. Why does Lily even care? Nina's just some-some whacked up broad who maybe was high on her stage night.

(You slipped E in her drink the night before, remember)

She doesn't make it to the vending machine, just freezes mid-way, her muscles seizing up like winter set in for the day.

(Maybe it wasn't just Thomas.)

(No.)

She nearly bumps into a nurse to get out of the hospital to breathe and by the time she's out the doors she's inhaling heavy and deep. Sweet air. She feels like a toxin.

Nina: the most amazing dancer she's ever met with a crazy mom. Bisexual (or gay, or pansexual, or...) and got a dressing-down from Thomas because of her. Lily can't tell if Nina hates her or not. Maybe she shouldn't have screamed about fantasies in the studio. Maybe she should have just stayed away from Nina. Maybe maybe maybe, echoing in her head. God, the way she danced, last night. Like a girl possessed by endless flights. The stumble was awful but it centered her or something. Watching her move like a demon with feathered wings was unreal.

Something as beautiful as that-how could she stay away?

But she-she poisoned her, corrupted her like she always seems to do, destruction is her forte and she couldn't help herself this time…

(I broke the swan.)

\--

Lily tries her best to take her mind off things. But now that the studio's closed-Thomas seems to be shaken more by Lily than he was by Beth-she doesn't have much to do in the day except pace around like a leopard in parks, randomly playing the penis game in her mind. She doesn't have a boyfriend or family or even friends to go to, here. The corps have fragmented, split by what seems to be a betrayal. Thomas: maybe a little lecherous-but a killer? Two in a row?

(Who's next)

The corps was her life. Now it's dissipated. She stops by her favorite coffee shop and gets a double mocha latte and adds whipped cream. Somehow she winds up in front of the hospital and strides in like she's a regular visitor, not even caring if Mrs. Sayers is there. Old hag can suck it.

Surprisingly, the room is empty but for Nina, laying in the bed, looking so small and sick and fragile that Lily's stricken by how much she's reverted. Seeing her cry on the first day-this is that Nina on the bed.

She doesn't want to look at her scars so she settles gingerly on the chair and stares at her. She doesn't know what to say. Lily doesn't know anything about Nina at all, not like this. Was it her fault? Was it thomas? Was it her overbearing mom? What was it?

She says this out loud.

Nina lies there, comatose.

Lily takes her hand and says, "I don't think anybody is ever going to compare to that night, Nina."

"I meant it when I said you killed it out there."

"Why won't you wake up?"

She checks in with the nurse when she comes in. Nina might wake up in a few days or even a week- but will be staying longer, as it seems like there were other injuries from before this. Lily's eyes narrow, but she thanks the nurse and leaves.

\--

She goes home and stares at the mirror. What if she'd been given the lead in the beginning? Would she be in that bed now?

She downs a lot of vodka and stays at home tonight, looking out the grand glass windows of her loft, perched on the window seat. Partying seems wrong tonight, weird and disrespectful. She pretends that she's flying over the highways and taking names until she stumbles half-asleep onto her bed.

\--

The smell of artificial spray is overwhelming, but she steps into the florist's anyway. There's a huge amount of violets, roses, orchids, tulips-she's seen the white roses Thomas has sent her and shies away instantly. Instead she picks some dahlias, red for a splash of color. She gets two and puts them next to her bedside when she arrives, not bothering with a card. She knows mrs. Sayer's schedule by now: after every meal and well into the evenings.

"I always thought dahlias were for beautiful women," she tells the silent room, feeling silly.

\--

There’s the blur around her vision that tells her that she’s tipsy. The staff nearly didn’t let her in. Her mouth is full of mints and she’s loosely babbling things to Nina, “You should have seen how hot this guy was at the bar,” or, a recount of the songs she danced to.

“Chelsea disappeared halfway with some guy named Charlie, which is hilarious alliteration,” she mumbles, as she feels her head getting heavier, finally plopping onto the sheets. “I mean, wow, Sebastian was hot and all, but I…didn’t really feel like fucking, tonight.”

She goes silent for a few minutes, slowly dragging into sleepiness, until she feels the body on the sheets stir. She lifts her head up to see Nina’s eyes slowly open like petals in spring, until they get large and she hears Nina say, “What are you doing here?”

Lily, cotton-mouthed and disoriented, replies, “Uhm, I’m here to-to see you, of course,” and Nina’s eyes just get larger.

“Are you going to kill me?”

Lily visibly stiffens. “…Why the hell would I do that?”

“Because you want your turn.”

“…What? Turn?”

“Turn to be _Swan Queen_ ,” Nina says. Lily stares at her, thousand-mile eyes blinking, until something in her clicks.

“Oh my God. Did you think I was messing with you to get the _fucking lead_?”

Nina’s rubbing her hands together, up and down her arms like she’s expecting something to pop out the pores, until Lily grips her wrists and Nina lashes out, like she’s going to bite her, except Lily’s not been hospitalized for over a week.

“I wanted to be friends, Nina. Everybody told me you were a hard worker, I thought, good for her, she gets some recognition, you thought I was fucking with you to be Swan Queen?”

Nina struggles and her hands flutter. “Beth told me you were trying to replace me.”

“…Beth?”

And at that she thrashes, screaming, “No! No! I’m not nothing! I was perfect, stay away, stay away-don’t _TOUCH ME_ -”

She lets go of Nina and there’s nothing left to do but call the nurses. She flat-out sprints out of the hospital, uncertain and sobered up quicker than she thought was possible, heaving air. The nurses curtly tell her, when she comes back, that Nina Sayers isn't allowed visitors. Lily flips the receptionist the bird when her back is turned and leaves.

\--

There's something heavy in the air, now, when she hits the studio. There's no more frivolous gossiping or bubbles in the dressing room. No one talks for ages. Just does some jetes, hands white-knuckled on the bar. Nina's spot is taken up by Lily, of all things, and she doesn't savor the irony. There's very little but the music. Thomas is not in his office today-fending off the press, explaining things to the sponsors. When they all go for lunch there is the hushed wisp of a rumor that the studio is going to close. Lily doesn't say anything. Veronica does not show up and Lily would join her, maybe, except that she needs to know something, see something that's still in this studio. A ghost, maybe, something that would explain.

No. She's waiting for Nina to come back, as sick as it sounds, as utterly disgusting that the thought is. Why would Nina come back? Why would Nina ever come back?

The past six weeks she'd heard whispers that Nina was a slut, a whore, a no-good bitch, etc. but she doesn't tolerate anything but the casual remark, because Lily, for all her effortless grace, admires Nina. Admired. Nina. She was stunning, fragile, amazing, like an ice marionette. She was beautiful. She had the skills and the chops. The first time someone called Nina a talentless whore she'd turned on them like a lioness, "Really? Have you seen her? C’mon, don’t tell me you haven't seen how good she is," and for a while she'd been shunned, but everyone just accepted it.

"Hero worship. Just like Nina and Beth," she'd heard someone whisper one day, barely audible, and she'd wheeled around to see who, but there'd been no one there but the gleaming, wall-to-wall mirrors.

She spins around and around and around until her head feels too light. 


	2. doves cranes crowns

She can’t remember the first time she woke up clearly. All that’s left is a foggy haze of Lily and Beth, melding together into a dark face and black feathers everywhere, orange eyes the size of saucers, the smell of rubbing alcohol and mints. She hates that smell, now. She wants to drown.

Day in, day out, doves keep trying to attend to her and fixing up her wings, feeding her water from their beaks- but don’t they know already that it’s useless? The white swan is dead.

One day her mother comes to call and she’s relentless, she’s crying and weeping and her eyes can’t stop mutating so she says nothing. Her mother keeps on shrieking and her ears know this, but her eyes glaze over like skies on lakes and she dreams of water and sky meeting at the horizon. Eventually the doves take her mother away to the nest.

There is no prince to wait and long for anymore. There’s no more swan left in her that isn’t bones and feathers covered in blood, bar flesh and beak.

She was perfect and now she is not.

(She is nothing, nothing nothing-)

She does not reach for any of the blades that come near her, on occasion, but for once, when she thought she saw Beth behind the curtain-her mother has told her over and over again it is not the same hospital. But she could have escaped from the grave. She could have, she could have, -

\--

Then she begins to notice the red flowers that are always in the room. Poppies, dahlias, tulips, but it’s mostly always dahlias. They’re strange. They’re certainly not her mother’s style.

She hasn’t spoken in weeks and her voice comes out dry and hoarse to one of the doves:

“W-who keeps…sending these?”

She looked shocked before replying, “Ah, Miss Sayers, it’s a girl who keeps trying to visit you.”

Her eyes widen. “Is it, is it is it B-”

The dove’s eyes widen before cutting off quickly, “No, no, Miss, it’s this…she’s tan, she has wing tattoos on her back and always comes in with tights?”

Light slants through the slats and flickers on and off in the dimly lit room.

“…Lily?”

\--

“Four letters, four letters, four,” she sings to herself lightly, like it’s a nursery rhyme and she forgot the lyrics.

(Beth Nina Lily)

\--

They’ve put gloves on her hands.

Therapy is a woman sitting in a chair facing her. For the first few sessions she doesn’t say anything, just plays with the wool and occasionally glances up at her face. She’s pretty elderly, blonde hair with grey. She looks like a crane to her, she decides. She’s also got a long arching neck.

The crane speaks to her mother too. One day the crane says, “So, would you like to tell me about the Swan Queen?”

Her lips part. Her throat threatens to heave everything out. The dead body, the mirrors’ moving eyes, the exoskeleton of feathers and the cracking, little bits and pieces of-of-

“I’m fine,” she says out loud, instead. Her voice cracks.

\--

When she walks, it’s unnervingly slow. The ground swirls under her in hypnotic curls, and the blue sky is even more entrancing, like bundles of ice dropped into a glass of warm water, reacting and myriad forces dancing in the glass. Inside her, someone is screaming, but she can barely hear.

She gets strong enough so that her mother tries bringing her ballet shoes.

“But you have to dance,” she catches her say hysterically. “She has to dance,” she tells the doves and they usher her out in a flurry of feathers.

She lies on the bed and listens to the radio play instrumental music. Not once do they ever put on Swan Lake.

\--

She talks to the crane more, now. She seems harmless. She tells her a lot of things, but never the body, never anything about Lily, it’s all just the reflections and her faces everywhere.

“Would you like to tell me anything about the girl who keeps trying to visit you?”

She freezes.

Lily: her reflection? Wild, loose, unrestrained, better. She killed her and then she didn’t kill her. Always there. Always not. Apologizing, explaining, being there and then not being there. Nice outside her head and nasty in it. Disappearing and reappearing like a stage magician.

“She’s…”

(who, who, who)

“I…can’t…remember.”


End file.
